Fish and other aquatic resource trends in the United States: a technical document supporting the Forest Service 2010 RPA Assessment

Abstract

The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) of 1974 requires periodic assessments of the status and trends in the Nation's renewable natural resources including fish and other aquatic species and their habitats. Data from a number of sources are used to document trends in habitat quality, populations, resource use, and patterns of imperilment among aquatic fauna. Freshwater habitat quality varied widely across the United States. Nationwide, more than half of monitored lakes were ranked in good condition, but the percentage ranged from a high of 91 percent in the upper Midwest to a low of 1 percent in the Northern Plains. Habitat conditions in monitored small streams indicated that 42 percent were found to be in poor condition. The Southern Appalachians, Southern Plains, and Northern Plains have 50 percent or more of their stream lengths in poor condition. The condition of small stream habitats was best in the Western mountains. Data availability continues to limit comprehensive evaluations of freshwater fish populations. Of the 253 marine fish stocks assessed in 2009, 38 percent were deemed to be overfished or subject to overfishing. Pacific salmon have declined throughout much of their range although stocks native to Alaska have fared better than those in the Pacific Northwest. Species associated with aquatic habitats have higher proportions of species considered to be at-risk of extinction than other species groups. At-risk aquatic species are concentrated in watersheds occurring in the southern Appalachians and the southeastern coastal plain. The number of anglers has declined since the early 1990s. Relationships between land use, water quality, and aquatic species conditions are explored in a series of case studies. The report provides implications of aquatic resource trends for management and planning.

Crowd‐Sourced Databases as Essential Elements for Forest Service Partnerships and Aquatic Resource Conservation

“…As the eDNAtlas database has grown to include thousands of sample sites, it provides spatially precise information about the distribution and abundance of many species throughout their ranges on and near national forests. Those data are essential for basic status and trend assessments (Loftus and Flather 2012) as well as research projects to model and understand species distributions and the constraints imposed by environmental and habitat conditions (Elith and Leathwick 2009). Importantly, by developing and sharing the contents of the eDNAtlas among numerous agencies and users as it is populated, redundant sampling is minimized and cost effectiveness is maximized.…”

“…Whether U.S. Forest Service (USFS) managers, cooperators in other agencies, and partner organizations are trying to understand how fish and other aquatic species are distributed on public lands or how habitat and populations are affected by management activities (e.g., grazing, timber harvest, and road construction) or new threats (e.g., climate change and larger wildfires), information at many scales is essential for resource stewardship of complex ecosystems (Loftus and Flather 2012;Penaluna et al 2018, this issue;Roper et al 2018, this issue). Whether U.S. Forest Service (USFS) managers, cooperators in other agencies, and partner organizations are trying to understand how fish and other aquatic species are distributed on public lands or how habitat and populations are affected by management activities (e.g., grazing, timber harvest, and road construction) or new threats (e.g., climate change and larger wildfires), information at many scales is essential for resource stewardship of complex ecosystems (Loftus and Flather 2012;Penaluna et al 2018, this issue;Roper et al 2018, this issue).…”

“…The need for good information is common to all topics in this special issue of Fisheries. Whether U.S. Forest Service (USFS) managers, cooperators in other agencies, and partner organizations are trying to understand how fish and other aquatic species are distributed on public lands or how habitat and populations are affected by management activities (e.g., grazing, timber harvest, and road construction) or new threats (e.g., climate change and larger wildfires), information at many scales is essential for resource stewardship of complex ecosystems (Loftus and Flather 2012;Penaluna et al 2018, this issue;Roper et al 2018, this issue). The USFS, as a land management agency founded on the principle of scientifically based multiple-use management set forth by Gifford Pinchot (Egan 2009), relies on numerous databases compiled at forest, regional, and national scales to store, summarize, and analyze many types of measurements that are pertinent to aquatic species and their habitats.…”

Wildlife population and harvest trends in the United States: a technical document supporting the Forest Service 2010 RPA Assessment

“…Fish and Wildlife Service has sufficient information on file to support proposals to list the species as threatened or endangered, but for which preparation and publication of a listing proposal is precluded by other listing activities (USDI, Fish and Wildlife Service 1996:7598). proportions of at-risk species (all exceeding 35 percent ) than did taxonomic groups more typically associated with terrestrial habitats (reptiles, mammals, and birds), which tended to have less than 20 percent of their species assessed to be at-risk (see also Loftus and Flather 2012). Furthermore, there is evidence that amphibians as a group are underlisted (many more species are considered at-risk than are listed under ESA) and underfunded (per species recovery expenditures are much lower than for terrestrial vertebrates) (Gratwicke and others 2012).…”

“…For the purposes of this report, "wildlife" is defined as unconfined and undomesticated vertebrate and invertebrate species that primarily inhabit terrestrial ecosystems. Trends associated with species that are primarily associated with aquatic habitats are covered in a companion report (Loftus and Flather 2012). The trends reviewed herein update wildlife resource trends that have been presented as components of previous RPA Assessment reporting cycles (see USDA, Forest Service 1981;Flather and Hoekstra 1989;Flather and others 1999;Flather and others 2008;Flather and others 2009a) and provide an opportunity for evaluating the degree to which past trajectories have remained the same or changed.…”